UPLAN Network Power Model™

A Complete System for Integrated Market Simulation, Price Forecasting, Optimal Power Flow, Asset Valuation and Risk Management

Overview

UPLAN Network Power Model™ (UPLAN-NPM) incorporates a rich, integrated representation of physical features of the electric generators, loads and transmission, financial characteristics and system operation.

UPLAN-NPM performs coordinated marginal cost (or bid) based energy and ancillary service procurement, congestion management, N-x contingency analysis with Security Constrained Unit Commitment (SCUC) and Security Constrained Economic Dispatch (SCED) similar to those used by ISOs. A novel feature of UPLAN is simultaneous Unit Commitment, Optimal Power Flow (OPF), and dispatch to ensure that all transmission constraints, line contingencies, outages and physical constraints for power delivery are obeyed. UPLAN has no inherent restriction on size, speed, transmission contingencies, number of generators, and load buses. The following modules add to the functionality of UPLAN-NPM.

UPLAN-NPM: Market Simulation Model

UPLAN simulates the electricity market using Security-Constrained Unit Commitment (SCUC) and Security-Constrained Economic Dispatch (SCED). UPLAN-NPM replicates the engineering protocols and market procedures of an operator, with a full (AC or DC) network transmission model and projects hourly Locational Market Prices (LMP). It performs coordinated marginal (opportunity) cost-based energy and ancillary service procurement, congestion management, full-fledged contingency analysis using SCUC and Reliability (or Residual) Unit Commitment (RUC) and SCED similar to those used by most market operators in the country.

In its determination of optimal unit commitment subject to security constraints, UPLAN realistically characterizes generators’ market participation based on opportunity or marginal cost-based bidding, with arbitrage, which is simulated via a state-of-the-art multi-commodity Nash equilibrium algorithm.

For SCED, the OPF simulation may utilize either DC or AC power flow, and the system will be optimally re-dispatched to manage congestion while obeying transmission constraints such as line thermal limits, including use of post-contingency analysis for all specified contingencies under which the dispatch is required to remain secure. The two steps described above work interactively to realistically simulate day-ahead energy and ancillary service markets.

UPLAN is Used for Short and Long Term analysis for ...

• Energy (LMP—Energy, Loss & Congestion), Capacity and Ancillary Service Prices
• Daily and weekly ISO Operations
• Generator Costs and Revenues, Net Operating margin
• Fuel Consumption
• Economic Analysis of Transmission
• Load Flow, Branch Overload, LODF, OTDF
• Congestion Revenue Rights, Shadow Price
• Long-term Asset Valuation
• New market Entry and Expansion Planning
• Emission & Allowance Prices
• Volatility, Hedging & Risk Management
• Asset Valuations

UPLAN Components

• Volatility Model – The model enables simulation of the volatility of underlying fundamental drivers, such as load and fuel prices, so that they can be incorporated into the electric system operations and prices.
• Maintenance Scheduling Model (MSM) – MSM determines the economic scheduling of generator maintenance over time to stabilize reliability.
• UPLAN Application Programming Interface – This is a programming interface used to automate internal processes and simplify data import.
• UPLAN PowerStack Cluster – A utility tool that runs UPLAN in a distributed computing environment to dramatically reduce the run- time by an order of magnitude.
• UPLAN Configuration Tools – This Client configuration utility and Server configuration utility provide easy installation for UPLAN SQL database, UPLAN client workstations, and for monitoring PowerStack Cluster during operations.
• Transmission Model – UPLAN has a sophisticated built-in load flow program which optimizes load flow every hour, for both unit commitment and economic dispatch.
• UPLAN Advance Clearing Engine – A companion system that replicates the operation of ISOs and models the Day-Ahead Market (DAM) on an hourly basis and Real-Time Market (RTM) operations every five minutes.

Long and Short Term Capabilities

UPLAN Bus Diagram - LMPs & Flows

Distribution of LMP